A class action lawsuit filed against the Washington Post alleges the paper collected private data through secret surveillance to price gouge customers, Mediaite reported.
The complaint, obtained by Mediaite. says the Post surveilled its subscribers without their knowledge or consent.
“Rather than rewarding loyalty, The Post’s system converted Subscribers engagement into leverage against them,” according to the complaint.
“Longtime Subscribers would end up paying more than new customers simply because the company knew more about them,” the complaint alleges.
The Post only revealed its surveillance pricing following a disclosure law New York passed in 2025.
Prior to the law, “not a single subscriber was aware of their surveilled pricing or secret harvesting of their data,” the complaint reads.
“We are hearing from people each week and as the case moves forward we may add new plaintiffs,” said Tim Giordano, an attorney representing the plaintiffs.
According to the complaint, no version of the Post’s privacy policy disclosed how much of a subscriber’s data was being harvested, from what sources, how long it had been collected, and how it was being used to determine pricing.
